Exhibits & Events

Come and explore the life of one of Aldergrove's and Langley's most storied pioneers, Sapper Philip Jackman. The exhibit follows the life of Philip Jackman, a Royal Engineer of the Columbia Detachment who came to British Columbia in 1859 and later became Reeve of Langley.

Jackman opted for a life of adventure and opportunity as a young man, leaving his small farming village of Northlew, Devon, England to endure a six-month voyage across the Atlantic Ocean and around Cape Horn to British Columbia. He and other engineers quickly engaged in laying out the infrastructure for the new colony; building the provincial capital of New Westminster, surveying and constructing towns and roads, and altering rivers for safer passage.

The Royal Engineers changed the province, both during their time in the Columbia detachment and as community leaders after their disbandment in 1863. Like other Royal Engineers for whom towns, streets, and parks have been named, Jackman was a doer. He participated in the Cariboo Gold Rush, worked for the Canadian Pacific Railroad and the Provincial Lunatic Asylum, was a proprietor of a saloon, general store and post office, patrolled the streets of New Westminster as a night-watchman and the Fraser River as a Fisheries Guardian, and sat at the head of Langley's municipal council as Reeve. This exhibit draws information from censuses, directories, council minutes, newspapers, theses, monographs, correspondence, oral histories, and other archival records to present the life and times of Philip Jackman.

Please join us for the exhibit's opening reception on Saturday, November 18 from 2:00 - 4:00pm. For more details, please contact curator@tol.ca, or phone the museum directly.